Who still has a shot at AOY?

These final events are great examples of why you cannot afford to take a day off in the Elite Series. Going into these final two tournaments, there were only four or five anglers who had a viable shot at winning AOY — Evers, Reese, VanDam, Martens, Jones. That changes with every day of the tournament. When Evers ended the day in 25th place, it put tremendous pressure on the others. While there will be some big swings in the standings today, you can't count on them happening to the leaders. After all, they're the most consistently solid anglers in the field. They might move up a little, but falling like a rock is probably not in the cards. That's bad news for Alton Jones, who was 49th after Day 1. Losing 24 points to Evers when he was just barely in the race to begin with probably ends Jones' chances at AOY this season. Reese was 36th, so he lost a little ground, too. Only KVD and Martens picked up any of the slack. They're now 29 and 33 points back of Evers, respectively. That's not very close, but it's close enough to put some pressure on Evers going into St. Clair and force him to make some decisions about his tournament strategy. Edwin fishes to win, but will he play it safe if it gives him a better shot at AOY?

Of course, there's still a lot of fishing to be done right here at the St. Lawrence. We'll know a whole lot more after today's weigh-in.